I know I am late to this conversation, but why is everyone focused on the "assault rifle" bit? There is no such thing as an assault rifle. Please don't throw around terms created by the press in order to demonize weapons. The guy did not even use what you deem to be an "assault rifle" unless you consider pistols and shotguns "assault rifles". So unless you install x-ray machines or get Superman to stand at the entrance, you will probably never know until he decides to pull it out and start shooting if he has a weapon. And since I have been sucked into this tangent, I want to hit on something else that people keep focusing on, and quite frankly, it is dis-heartening to see so many people take this view. And that is that it is better to stand by and do nothing, including NOT arming teachers (who by the way, we entrust our childrens' lives, future, and education to EVERYDAY we send them to school, but can't grasp the concept of them being armed "just in case") and NOT having ANY type of actual security (besides hiding behind buzzers and scanners run by old women who just need a job and could not stop anyone who actually WANTED to get in from getting in. Instead they blame the weapons or anything else they can besides themselves and society as a whole for failing that individual (since it can't EVER be THAT persons fault), or the local law enforcement that has to deal with everything else these individuals such as drunken drug addicted parents calling 911 to have the police get them a pack of cigarettes from the store because they shouldn't drive. To use a quote that I believe fits this conversation quite well (at least up to this point of me reading it) is this - "It has been said that for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." Charles F Aked. We need to move away from this idea that we need to be politically correct when it comes to the health and welfare of our children, youth, country, or our future.

Ok buddy. First off, you are going to quote Wikipedia for your fact? Second off, it is a term that has been coined in order to be implemented in the banning of certain rifles, which came from a common misconception that the "AR" from the popular AR-15 meant assault rifle. Please, get your information correct and checked before trying to jump into a conversation like this. The AR form the AR-15 was a designation from the MANUFACTURER, not the type of weapon. If you do a search for AR-15, you will see that when you get to the sites it says AR TYPE. So NO, there is no such think as an assault rifle, merely a coined phrase created to demonize the CARBINE rifles used primarily by militaries around the world. Thank, come again.

"local law enforcement that has to deal with everything else these individuals such as drunken drug addicted parents calling 911 to have the police get them a pack of cigarettes from the store because they shouldn't drive."

Ha! My best friend is an EMT and she tells me stories like this all the time.

You give the impression of being a gun rights advocate bristling at the thought that yet another massacre might cause the public to question some of those rights.

How could, for example, having an armed security guard or two not have cut down the death toll among the children (which is now 22, with 2 having died in the hospital)?

The shooter opened fire in a classroom. You must mean "an armed security guard or two" should be posted in every classroom. Because it's a stretch to imagine that posting them anywhere else would let them intervene in time. Let's also be clear what intervene means: have a shootout in a classroom full of small children.

Are you saying that saving a few of those children would not have been worthwhile?

Nobody said that. But let me be the first to say this. Twenty dead kids, one dead kid, one wounded kid, or even one gunshot in a classroom is still too many.

Arming more people might lower the body count. But so might disarming more people. Nutcases like this young man in Connecticut would be a good start. That, I would call worthwhile.

I'm not a member of the NRA. I don't own a gun and don't want to own a gun. However, I think it's rather, um, dumb to think that if several of the teachers or a couple campus police might not have saved a few of the children. would their lives have not been worthwhile?

The shootings lasted (they say) about 10 minutes. "An armed security guard or two" in every classroom is a classic strawman. You must know that is not what I was saying, so you are rephrasing my assertion to suit your reply. Here at TA we're a little smarter than to fall for that one.

A shootout in a classroom would surely have diverted the shooter to has attacker and away from the children. The downside?

I'm not a gun nut, but the arguments used by those opposed to gun ownership are almost invariably stupider than the ones used by the NRA and gun owners.

If one dead kid is too many, then trying to save a few is better than leaving schools with no defense whatsoever.

The idea of disarming the public is really naive and impractical. This country is nowhere near wanting to get rid of the 2nd Amendment, so what's the next best defense against incidents like these?

I'm not a member of the NRA. I don't own a gun and don't want to own a gun. However, I think it's rather, um, dumb to think that if several of the teachers or a couple campus police might not have saved a few of the children. would their lives have not been worthwhile?

I notice your "armed security guard or two" has become "several of the teachers" or a contingent of campus police.

"An armed security guard or two" in every classroom is a classic strawman. You must know that is not what I was saying, so you are rephrasing my assertion to suit your reply. Here at TA we're a little smarter than to fall for that one.

I'm not misrepresenting your position. You're misrepresenting mine.

I said your security guard concept was suspect. So you modified it (after the fact) by expanding the distribution of armaments, presumably to make it more effective. More guns. That's not your position?

You really are advocating guns in every classroom. That is, unless you're saying arming 'several' teachers is more effective than arming them all (i.e. every classroom).

A shootout in a classroom would surely have diverted the shooter to has attacker and away from the children. The downside?

You're sure of this scenario? Amazing. How?

I'm not a gun nut, but the arguments used by those opposed to gun ownership are almost invariably stupider than the ones used by the NRA and gun owners. [...] The idea of disarming the public is really naive and impractical.

I didn't say I was opposed to gun ownership. My idea was not to disarm the public. I didn't say we should get rid of the 2nd amendment.

I said we should disarm nutcases. I agreed that arming more people might lower the body count. I added that disarming more people might help too. Go and look.

(Who is this too-smart-for-me TA in-group you reference, by the way? I presume the membership requirement involves agreeing with you, yes?)

This country is nowhere near wanting to get rid of the 2nd Amendment, so what's the next best defense against incidents like these?

There is no practicable defense against incidents like these in a free society where gun ownership is a right and access is freely available. Columbine. Westside. Virginia Tech. The Sikh temple. The Batman premiere. Now, Newtown. These incidents will keep happening. Harden one target and the shooter simply finds another.

If you back unfettered gun ownership as a right, then you implicitly accept that incidents like these will occur. You're saying gun rights are worth the mass killings.

But each mass murder incident causes the public to reexamine that conviction. Gun rights advocates, who prefer to frame the issue as permanently settled and decided, see this as a threat. So they must remind everyone that their gun rights trump the little kids in body bags.

That's hard to do. So out come the weapons of misdirection. They present the debate as 'guns versus MORE guns' rather than 'guns versus no guns'.

Golly, it's terrible that all of these kids are dead. Sigh. If only we had more guns and fewer restrictions on guns. That would've made everything so much better. You're dumb to think otherwise when I'm so smart!

I didn't buy that argument before, and after your deeply dishonest ditto-head recitation of it, I buy it even less.

Too bad he didn't make a lot of sense. I think it's rather obvious that a gun or two in the hands of SOMEONE there might have cut the shooting spree from 10 minutes to 2 or 3 or 4, saving many kids' lives. But saving their lives appears not to be worth it, if the price to be paid is more guns.

How many years would that person have had to walk around, looking like Wyatt Earp, before such an event occurred? And in how many other schools, will it never occur?

Even if the teachers had packed a pair of 38's in their bras, as well as a couple of guns, they wouldn't have been able to make much difference, and then there're the schools in which this will never happen in a million years, yet we would still have the Earps swaggering down the halls - what does that tell our children?

How did an armed man get into the school? That's the question we should be asking.

Placing myself in such a position, as the 'armed teacher', does assume the willingness to use deadly force against another human being, armed with intent. As a aspiring civilized person, with the intellectual desire to control any proclivity to anger or over reaction, it is unclear if I would freeze while at the decision point to open fire.

While in the presence of the shooter, with my dear children around me, facing the near sure death of myself and these dear ones, will I kill the poor fool? Will my hand be steady, and will I pop off the first shot, before I draw my last breath? Sadly I can not know this before the event.

So far I have only come close a few times, but I am not a teacher, and have never been armed for the that moment.

I use my greatest asset, My Big Mouth, to stop some crazy people in their tracks.